Great news that the tour is once again coming to GB, can't wait to be standing on the moors of Yorkshires watching the worlds best fly by! Hopefully we will be shouting for another British defending champion then too :-)

Where the race starts has very little influence on parcours. This year we had Liege but no hills, next year we have Corsica but no mountains etc etc. The two stooges will always strive to maximise the dullness of the opening days.

Ferminal wrote:Where the race starts has very little influence on parcours. This year we had Liege but no hills, next year we have Corsica but no mountains etc etc. The two stooges will always strive to maximise the dullness of the opening days.

I guess 2010 is the best they've done recently.

Folks lining up the streets waving flags will be enough for the dynamic duo, which leaves us with the mountain-less route on the Island of Corsica to ponder.

Been wondering how they were going to pull of a London stage on a Monday, but if Cambridge is the start it all makes sense.

Hmmm...

Cambridge to London too long for a TT, no hills. So there's the Cav friendly stage. Coming in from the North East after a jaunt around the Essex/Herts countryside gives easy options for road closures without causing problems on any main routes.

And guess what, it almost naturally brings you to what will be the recently rebuilt and reopened olympic park with all it's shiny new cycleways, nearby shopping and the EuroStar terminal for the champagne swillers to get back across the channel and checked in with heaps of spare time before dinner.

However, just a guess...

[SIZE="1"]"Drugs don't turn a donkey into a greyhound you know" Liggett[/SIZE]

Ferminal wrote:Where the race starts has very little influence on parcours. This year we had Liege but no hills, next year we have Corsica but no mountains etc etc. The two stooges will always strive to maximise the dullness of the opening days.

I guess 2010 is the best they've done recently.

Think you're being a bit unfair on next year? The first stage is pretty dull and its difficult to see anything other than there being a bunch sprint, but after that the terrain looks quite good. There may be nothing to compare to the finish on the ospedale but the climbs that there are could see some sprinters dropped and then a chase to try and get back on, with the yellow jersey up for grabs if the previous day's winner is dropped. The climb before the end of stage 3 is likely to see the race break up again.

Frosty wrote:Think you're being a bit unfair on next year? The first stage is pretty dull and its difficult to see anything other than there being a bunch sprint, but after that the terrain looks quite good. There may be nothing to compare to the finish on the ospedale but the climbs that there are could see some sprinters dropped and then a chase to try and get back on, with the yellow jersey up for grabs if the previous day's winner is dropped. The climb before the end of stage 3 is likely to see the race break up again.

I love sprint stages. Yes the 200k or so before the finish can be tedius, but there's usually the drama of the breakaway, the odd crash and all the scenery to take it. But onmce you get inside 10k or so and the the sprint teams start to turn the screw and jostle for position, it's brilliant. Not sure what people are looking for from early stages: too soon for MTFs surely?

The terrain of Northern England is unlike anything else I've come across anywhere in Europe and is magnificent cycling country. Some of the climbs in Yorkshire are extremely difficult (I rode Shibden Wall last summer - ridiculous climb!) and the scenery is great.

The route will be driven by economics so will be aiming to showcase whatever parts of Yorkshire they choose. The TOB makes its money through partnerships with tourism boards/development agencies and I'm sure this will be no different.

If the Leeds-Scarborough-Sheffield route is chosen both have the potential to pass through some beautiful and uniquely northern English countryside and also be extremely tough and interesting stages.

And given some of the uninspring spots they start from some years it might make a refereshing change. Wait, watch and enjoy!

Ferminal wrote:Where the race starts has very little influence on parcours. This year we had Liege but no hills, next year we have Corsica but no mountains etc etc. The two stooges will always strive to maximise the dullness of the opening days.

JimmyFingers wrote:I love sprint stages. Yes the 200k or so before the finish can be tedius, but there's usually the drama of the breakaway, the odd crash and all the scenery to take it. But onmce you get inside 10k or so and the the sprint teams start to turn the screw and jostle for position, it's brilliant. Not sure what people are looking for from early stages: too soon for MTFs surely?

Although that would be ace

2010 Tour, stage 2:

2010 Vuelta, stage 3:

2008 Giro, stage 2:

2008 Tour, stage 1:

There are others, like the cobbles of the 2010 Tour, stage 3, or the wind of the 2010 Giro, stage 3. You can make something interesting in the early going of a Tour without an MTF. A stage with lots of hills that can open up gaps like Spa would have been, a big climb to be selective but placed far from the finish so ensuring not totally decisive but still making the race hard to control by blasting a few domestiques out the back like Málaga, a puncheur's stage where the GC men can win or lose a few seconds like Agrigento or a stage with few real climbs but no real flat stuff like Plumelec.

All viable options for the first 3 stages even if you don't want to put an MTF in them. Also, part of it is, Corsica offers so many opportunities that it seems a real let-down to make such a big deal of finally using it, only to squander everything it gives us.

The 2014 Tour de France start in Yorkshire will be tougher than usual, with a straightforward first stage from Leeds to Harrogate on the opening Saturday followed by a stage from York to Sheffield which the organiser, Christian Prudhomme, compared to the Liege-Bastogne-Liege one day Classic – one of the toughest single-day events on the calendar.

Stage three takes the peloton from Cambridge to central London via Epping Forest and the Olympic Park.

As predicted when the Yorkshire start was announced, there will be no prologue time trial in the 2014 route, with a road race stage instead, which finishes, by happy coincidence, in the city where Mark Cavendish's mother resides.

After passing through the Yorkshire Dales national park, through Kettlewell, Aysgarth, Hawes and Reeth, the first stage will have a relatively flat run-in to the finish through Ripon.

Stage two has a far tougher finale, with six climbs that pepper the final 60km run-in to Sheffield. The race passes through Keighley, Haworth, Hebden Bridge, Elland and Huddersfield before Holmfirth. Further details are set to be announced on Thursday afternoon, but that points to the inclusion of the iconic climb of Holme Moss, a fixture in the Leeds Classic World Cup race in the 1990s.

The riders then transfer to Cambridge for the start of stage three, passing through Epping Forest and the London Olympic Park before a finish in central London which is understood to be on the Mall, replicating that of the Olympic road race last August.

This will be the fourth time the Tour has visited Great Britain, with the hugely successful London start in 2007 preceded by Le Tour en Angleterre in 1994, when the race ran stages from Dover to Brighton and around Portsmouth. The Tour's first trip over the Channel was in 1974 for a circuit race in Plymouth.

Parrulo wrote:lolwut? you do realize belgium has been providing some of the best racing in the history of cycling for over 100 years don't you?

Im from Sheffield but live in Holland and ride a lot in Belgium. Actually Yorkshire and Belgium can provide very similar topography. Yorkshire is a bit more mixed and a lot less tree lined but ofr hills and steepness they are very similar. Having said that therei s little in Belgium that compares to a hill like Holmemoss for length and average gradient.

Alberto we love youon the roadyou don't need to say this stuffwe saw you on the roadyou blessed us with 9 great showslet's not argue the toss about the official countyou are much bigger than that~TourOfSardinia